Professional-Quality Fonts (Free!)

Want to make your presentation look sharp but tired of the same old Microsoft font collection? Want to stand out from the crowd? Here's a couple articles that link to deliciously free designer fonts:

• 40+ Excellent Freefonts For Professional Design
• 75+ Excellent Free Fonts For Professional Design

Project: Civil War - Schedule

Monday, 25 March: Ramona, Kevin, Mike, Kwesi, Mirembe

Project: Country Profile - Presentation Schedule

Monday, 25 March
Wesley, Olivia, Caleb, Malachi, Rodas, Grace

Tuesday, 26 March
Gwen, Megan, Tanner, Arnold, Martin, Ishyaka

Wednesday, 27 March
Alex, Anais, Alexis, Rama, Hannah

Project: Country Profile - Sources

Sources

• The World Factbook (CIA)
• UN Data
• National Geographic Travel
• BBC News - Asia
• The World Bank: Data

Historical Figure Rubric

Content - 40%

• Biographical Sketch - 10%
• time and place of birth
• major movements in location
• educational and professional milestones
• marriage
• Historical Impact - 30%
• What did they do?
• What was their motivation?
• How did they make a difference?
• When did they make most of their contributions?
• Where did they operate?
• How would that time and place be different without them?
• What adversity did they face? 
• Who were their enemies?
• Who were their allies/supporters?
• How did they respond?

The other 60% will be graded according to the Presentation Rubric (Presentation - 40%, Sources - 10%, and Effort - 10%).

Country Profile Rubric

Content - 50%

• Political - 10%
• flag
• map
• population
• major cities
• type of government
• structure of government
• national leader(s)
• Geographic - 10%
• landforms
• bodies of water
• Economic - 10%
• natural resources
• infrastructure data
• industries
• agricultural products
• tourism
• GDP
• per capita income
• imports/exports
• Cultural - 10%
• ethnicities
• religion
• education
• art
• music
• dress
• food
• Historical - 10%
• important historical event
• current event

The other 50% will be graded according to the Presentation Rubric, slightly modified (Presentation - 40%, Sources - 5%, and Effort - 5%).

Project: Country Profile - Topics

Directions

1. Choose a country.
2. Gather research on your country.
3. Create a PowerPoint presentation.
4. Refer to the Country Profile Rubric and Presentation Rubric for requirements.
5. Present next Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday.

Countries

• Afghanistan - Caleb
• Armenia - Ishyaka
• Bahrain - Martin
• Bangladesh - Olivia
• Bhutan
• Georgia
• India
• Iran
• Iraq - Gwen
• Israel - Alexis
• Jordan
• Kazakhstan - Alex
• Kuwait
• Kyrgyzstan - Anais
• Lebanon - Rodas
• Nepal - Wesley
• Pakistan - Hannah
• Qatar - Malachi
• Saudi Arabia - Tanner
• Sri Lanka - Grace
• Syria - Rama
• Tajikistan - Megan
• Turkey - Arnold
• Turkmenistan
• Uzbekistan
• Yemen

Presentation Rubric

• Content - 40%
• Accurate - 15%
• factual
• no personal opinions
• debated points presented in a balanced way
• Informative - 10%
• connects to class discussions
• adds to class discussions
• Thorough - 15%
• detailed information
• no trivial information
• Presentation - 40%
• Organization - 10%
• Structure
• chronological
• modular
• physical
• spatial
• problem/solution
• issues/action
• case study
• compare/contrast
• matrix
• Transitions
• Voice - 5%
• loud enough for everyone to hear
• moderate rate of speech (not too fast)
• Slides - 5%
• few ideas (ideally one) per slide
• minimal text
• at least 20 slides (not including title slide and works cited)
• Images - 5%
• quantity
• quality (appealing; high resolution)
• appropriateness
• citation as footnote on individual slide or all image citations on one slide at the end
• Color Scheme, Text Animations, Slide Transitions, and Fonts - 5%
• appealing
• "less is more" when it comes to animations and slide transitions
• appropriate to content/structure
• Audience Interaction - 5%
• asking questions
• fielding questions
• handouts
• participation
• Time - 5%
• between 7-10 minutes
• Sources - 10%
• Credibility - 4%
• Quantity (at least three in addition to your textbook) - 4%
• MLA Formatting - 2%
• Effort - 10%
• Creativity - 5%
• Planning - 5%

Project: World War II - Topics

Michelle: Holocaust Survivors
Raoul: Resistance Movements
Silvia: US Women
Fred: Technological Advancements
Matthieu: Hiroshima & Nagasaki
Gabe: Hitler, 1938-1945
Maya: Concentration Camps
Thad: Russia, 1938-1945
Julia: Treatment of Jews before/during WWII
Kevin: Submarine Warfare
Taylor: General Douglas MacArthur

Your first assignment is to find three credible sources (in addition to your textbook), due Monday, 18 March.

Project: World War II

Topics: Invasion of Normandy (D-Day, June 6, 1944), Bombing of Pearl Harbor (Dec. 7, 1941), Concentration Camps (Choose two or three), Hiroshima and Nagasaki (Atomic bombs dropped here), Italy ’s Involvement in WWII, Benito Mussolini (Italy’s Dictator during WWII), Russia (The Soviet Union) 1938-1945, North Africa and WWII, Japanese Internment in the USA, WWII Prisoners of War, Hitler: 1938-1945, WWII Nazi Medical Experimentation, President Franklin D. Roosevelt during WWII, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill during WWII, The Battle of the Bulge, Nazism and WWII, Treatment of the Jews before/during WWII, WWII Resistance Movements, Holocaust Survivors (the stories of at least two), WWII War Crimes Trials, Submarine Warfare, General Douglas MacArthur, US Women, The War in the Pacific

Choose a topic from the list above. Your presentation is due on Friday, 22 March Monday, 25 March.

Updated: Note the new due date.

Project: Civil War - Topics

Mirembe: New Orleans & Robert E. Lee
Mike: Gettysburg & Harriet Tubman
Kwesi: Antietam & Ulysses S. Grant
Ramona: Chancellorsville & Jefferson Davis
Kevin: Shiloh & "Stonewall" Jackson

Project: Civil War

Topics

• Battles
• Antietam, Gettysburg, Chancellorsville, Fredericksburg, The Wilderness, Richmond, Mechanicsburg, Murfreesboro, New Orleans, Vicksburg, Shiloh and Morgan's Raid
• People
• Grant, Lee, McClellan, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Sheridan, Sherman, Stonewall Jackson, Clara Barton, Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, John Brown

Pick one battle and one person. You will make two presentations, one on each of your choices. Your presentation on a person is due next Friday, 22 March, and your presentation on a battle is due on Wednesday, 27 March.

I will post a rubric on how you will be assessed. For now, please find three credible sources in addition to your textbook, due on Monday, 18 March.

Possible Sources

• PBS: List of Online Resources

11-2 Essay Questions

• Describe the progress of war in the West.
• Compare the eastern campaigns to those in the West.

Research: Israel and Palestine

Questions

1. Who is involved in this conflict?
2. What region is at the heart of the conflict? Describe the claim that both groups have on this region.
3. What is Israel? When was it founded and by whom?
4. What is the Zionist Movement?
5. Describe the role of the U.S. in the establishment of Israel, a Jewish state.
6. How did the Holocaust affect the formation of a Jewish homeland?
7. What is the PLO? Whom does it represent?
8. Which nations are opposed to a Jewish state?
9. What was the intifada? Who was involved and what caused it?
10. What caused the rise of militant Islam? What is its link to modern terrorism? What is Hamas?

Use credible sources to answer the questions above. Possibilities include:

• http://www.pbs.org/newshour/indepth_coverage/middle_east/conflict/index.html
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/special_reports/middle_east_crisis/
• http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/oslo/etc/cron.html 

PowerPoint Tips

Here's the presentation that I shared with you in class. Credited and linked, as promised.

Don't Be A PowerPoint Felon from Nick Smith

This one has more tips on slide design. A bit more artsy and certainly more humorous in its sarcasm/meanness. Let's just not be mean about each other's (or our own) presentations. :)

You Suck At PowerPoint! from Jesse Desjardins - @jessedee

11-1 Essay Questions

• What are the strengths and weaknesses of each region's economy?
• Contrast the political situations of the Union and the Confederacy.

Priming

Here's what I referred to in class today:

The psychologists Claude Steele and Joshua Aronson created an even more extreme version of this test, using black college students and twenty questions taken from the Graduate Record Examination, the standardized test used for entry into graduate school. When the students were asked to identify their race on a pretest questionnaire, that simple act was sufficient to prime them with all the negative stereotypes associated with African Americans and academic achievement—and the number of items they got right was cut in half. As a society, we place enormous faith in tests because we think that they are a reliable indicator of the test taker’s ability and knowledge. But are they really? If a white student from a prestigious private high school gets a higher SAT score than a black student from an inner-city school, is it because she’s truly a better student, or is it because to be white and to attend a prestigious high school is to be constantly primed with the idea of “smart”?*

*Gladwell, Malcolm (2007-04-03). Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking (pp. 56-57). Hachette Book Group. Kindle Edition. 

Credible Online Sources

How do you know if your source is credible or not? Here's a few guiding questions that I found at a university library's website*:

• Does the site have a scholarly apparatus: a bibliography and endnotes?
• Is there a clear author?  What are the author's credentials, biases, and perspectives? 
• Who is the publisher?  A university or historical society?  A company? 
• Is the thesis built on a foundation of primary source material?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the site?
• How does the site help me understand my topic?
• What questions are left unanswered by the author?

Tips on finding credible sources:

• One clue that can help you decide if a site is credible is the domain name.  In general, sites that end with "edu" (educational sites), "gov" (government sites), or "org" (nonprofit organizations) offer more credible information than sites that end with "com" (commerical sites trying to sell something).
• Google your topic along with the keyword "library guide" or "libguide".  This will lead you to library web sites about your topic, and librarians generally list only high-quality sites on their pages.
• Specialty Search Engines
• IPL2: works like Yahoo, but finds mostly quality sites discovered by librarians
• InfoMine: scholarly internet collections

*http://guides.lib.ua.edu/content.php?pid=126639&sid=1087764

Project: Middle Ages

• Pick a partner or work alone.
• Choose a specific topic that you would like to research.
• Write at least three specific questions that you would like to investigate regarding your topic.
• Find at least three reliable resources in print or online in addition to your textbook.
• Choose a medium for what you will produce to demonstrate your learning including but not limited to:
• a 5-10 minute movie
• a PowerPoint/Keynote/Prezi presentation
• Rubric (0-5 in each criterion):
• Presents accurate information about your topic (30%)
• Presents information clearly so people can learn about your topic; concepts organized in a logical manner  (30%)
• Selected product allows you to convey your message/information (5 %)
• Reflects careful planning, creativity and effort; final product presents a polished appearance (30 %)
• Uses and cites a minimum of three references (5%)
• additional consideration will be taken for individual effort and collaboration for those working in groups
• Scale
• 5 - Excellent
• 4 - Commendable
• 3 - Adequate
• 2 - Developing
• 1 - Remedial
• 0 - Nonexistent

Project: Middle Ages - Topics

Looking forward to some great projects! Hope that you get quite a bit done this weekend. Carpe diem! :)

• Lily/Jason: Innocent III
• Naike/Esther: Papal Power
• Danieke: The Black Death
• Ella: Feudalism
• Ruth: Papal States
• KC: Christian Living
• Michaela: Vikings
• Jin Hee: Monks
• Mutara/Joshua: The Crusades
• Davis: Charlemagne
• Kassidy: Nuns
• Adam: Serfs vs. Slaves
• Ollie: Medieval Mythology

Herbert Hoover: "American System" Speech, 1928

Source PDF: “American System” Speech by Herbert Hoover, 1928

1. What is the American System?
2. What changes were necessary during the Great War?
3. What is the tendency of government after a war?
4. What does it mean for the government to be "an umpire instead of a player"?
5. What would the government propose as a solution to Prohibition?
6. How would the government propose to help with agriculture?
7. What consequences of increased involvement of government in business does Hoover fear? Give at least five.